Harrison stared at his wife, startled that she had cut to the center of him so easily and with only a handful of meetings with his sister, let alone to see the siblings together. How could she have possibly seen something so close to his heart, so private, when he hadn’t even felt vulnerable enough to admit the thing to himself?

“Yes,” he said in a soft, almost reverent voice. “Exactly. Is that a ridiculous notion?”

Again, she surprised him, this time with her immediate response of, “Not at all.”

He stared at her, wondering if this version of his wife was an apparition. “Truly?”

Adelaide nodded. “I know you’ve a brother, but you never speak of him, so you cannot be close. You speak of Emblyn all the time, so you have great affection for her already. The distance between the stations in which you were both raised is great, and were you speaking of marriage, I would disagree most ardently, but we are speaking of family. It is not quite the same thing. And I do not think one should be ashamed of wishing for affection in one’s family. I rather wish we’d had more of that.”

Her voice trailed off, and her expression became almost whimsical, though anyone looking at her might not have caught it beneath the facade of her hostess expression. Having seen many shades of her face already in this marriage, Harrison knew the subtle changes she could draw out, and the almost childlike air about her made him take her hand in spite of himself.

She jerked, glancing down at their hands, then up at him. “What was that for?”

He smiled at the genuine confusion. “You sounded a little lost just then. I thought I’d remind you that you are not.”

It was a simple enough statement without venturing into the overly personal, but there was something soft that appeared in her eyes as he said it.

Strange how he could say more than he spoke, mean more than he related, and not be embarrassed by a bit of it. This unspoken depth to conversation needed to not be addressed directly but only to be understood. It was something rather profound, a little thrilling, and undeniably humbling.

After all, this was his wife. If he could not have such moments with her, then who could?

The moment was broken by the sound of voices, their approaching guests, and Adelaide’s perfect-Society expression returned.

But he didn’t mind that so much. This time.